ARTHUR MORRIS LITOFF

Born: August 28, 1940
Died: October 27, 2008

Arthur M. Litoff was a New Haven native. He graduated from Hillhouse High School in 1958, one of 6 Hillhouse classmates who came to Yale, of whom only 2 now survive.

At Yale Arthur lived in McClellan Hall in a single room. He was assigned as a member of Silliman College but withdrew from Yale in 1959.

Subsequently, Arthur served in the U.S. Army and then graduated from Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He settled in Pennsylvania, residing successively in Dillsburg, Gardners and York Springs where he lived at the time of his death.

Arthur was a retired school teacher. He was a member of the Middletown (PA) Elks Lodge and active in local community organizations. After his retirement he joined the Playwrights Alliance of Pennsylvania. He also wrote short stories and epigrams which he frequently entered in the New York Magazine writing contests in the late 1990's.

Several years before his death Arthur visited some of the Native American tribal colleges in the West, and became devoted to Sitting Bull College which is on the Lakota Indian Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. As a result of this visit he became, in the words of Ron Walters, Development Director for the College, "a major benefactor." Arthur returned to visit the campus on many occasions and he endowed a building on the new campus which he asked the College to name for Elda C. Wagner. At the dedication of the building he explained that Mrs. Wagner, by then deceased, was an elderly lady in Carlisle when he attended Dickinson. She took him into her home when he could not afford room and board. Without her help, he said, he would have been unable to complete his education, and he wished her memory to be preserved in gratitude for her kindness to him. Sitting Bull College is one of 35 tribal colleges on reservations in the United States which primarily provide higher education opportunities for children of the reservation.

Arthur died suddenly on October 27, 2008. He was survived by his three children: his sons Kenneth C. Litoff (wife Xin Xin Cheng) of Gardners, PA and Gideon Z. Litoff (wife Eve) of San Diego, and his daughter Sarah K. Litoff also of San Diego. He was buried in Churchville Cemetery, Oberlin, PA.

The family requested that memorial donations be made to Sitting Bull College, Fort Yates, North Dakota.